Do kiwi birds even have wings?  Is this a terribly obvious metaphor?  Well it's my blog and I'll write what I want to ☺

VinoDuo may be late to the party, but we've discovered there's more to New Zealand wines than Sauvignon Blanc.  Lisa has been wild about NZ SB's for years, with a particular fondness for Cloudy Bay, Oyster Bay, Kim Crawford, and Matua (along with usual suspects Nobilo and Brancott.)  She's often derided any non-Marlborough SB, particularly the wannabe's from California that can't hold a candle to the sharp, clean, citrusy flavors of the NZ producers.

Now we find out that the country is not a one-trick pony but in fact produces very good - excellent Pinot, some of it from the same wineries known for their Sauvignon Blanc. Embarrassingly, Lisa first tasted the Oyster Bay Pinot by mistake.  She grabbed a bottle out of the wine cellar (aka the basement crawl space) to serve to her book group, thinking it was a Sauvignon Blanc.  Ok, it was dark, she wasn't paying attention, etc.  Since a perfectly good Tempranillo was already assigned book group duty, the Pinot stayed home.

Not ones to waste a bottle, VinoDuo dutifully opened the 2005 Oyster Bay Pinot Noir. Wine Spectator (May 15, 2007) raves that "the 2005 vintage marks a milestone for New Zealand Pinot Noir. Never before has the South Pacific nation produced so many outstanding bottlings from this challenging grape." New Zealand's cool-climate Pinot is closer to Burgundy's than California's; less ripe with livelier tannins.

While Oyster Bay didn't make the Spectator's list of recommended wines, we were anxious to test the 2005 vintage. Oyster Bay's web site says its 2005 Pinot is "fragrant, soft and flavourful with aromas of ripe cherries, plums and gentle sweet fruit tannins to provide serious structure and length."

Lisa says: Ripe cherries I get.  Plums, maybe. Soft, gentle...not so much. It's a pretty powerful Pinot but lacks the spice and finesse of better-quality wines. Gary says: Cough syrup on the nose. Earthy, a little oak, a little leather. The fruit is apparently absent. Smooth, with a medium finish.

Ok, so not off to a great start with the New Zealand 2005's. Next we moved on to the 2005 Drylands Estate ($17.99) from Nobilo Wine Group.  Drylands' Sauvignon Blanc is one of the Wine Spectator's Top Values. The Pinot, alas, still needs work. Lisa found it fruity but thin. Garry thought the cherries on the nose pleasant but said it tasted more heavily oaked than advertised by the winery. He also pronounced it light on fruit and heavy on the alcohol.

We completed our initial tasting with Seven Terraces 2005 Pinot Noir Marlborough from Foxes Island Wines.  Rated a "Best Value" by the wine couple in the Wall Street Journal, Seven Terraces held the promise of gold after two strikes outs. It did not disappoint. Lisa found some butterscotch or vanilla on the nose (probably news to the folks at Seven Terraces) with a little tobacco and smoke thrown in. Gary said it "smells like a Pinot should" and it had the right color and good legs.  The taste was reassuring—we'd finally found a New Zealand Pinot that could almost compete with California and Oregon varietals. It drank very smooth, a little nutty, with a smoky aftertaste and a good balance between fruit and alcohol. At $22.00, the 2005 Seven Terraces easily equaled many $30 US Pinots.

We'll keep trolling the aisles for more New Zealand Pinot Noirs and fully expect them to come up to the level of their US brethren in a year or two.